Emory Study Reveals Decline in Preventable Cardiac Deaths During Marathons - Video

While more people than ever are running marathons, the risk of dying from a heart attack during a run has fallen dramatically in recent years. That’s a key conclusion from a new follow-up to a study published– the first investigation into unexpected cardiac arrests during long distance running events.

The new findings, published in JAMA, indicate that while the rate of marathon runners who suffer cardiac arrests remained unchanged, their chance for survival is twice what it was in the past. Now, far fewer marathon runners who suffer cardiac arrest are dying of it.

The researchers used extensive public internet searches to identify and reach out to runners who survived cardiac arrests, or next-of-kin, to construct detailed profiles of as many cases as possible.

Analyzing this extensive database, the authors found that while the rate of cardiac arrests was about the same during the two periods – .60 per 100,000 participants now versus .54 per 100,000 participants in the earlier period – the rate of deaths from these cases, however, fell by half: from .39 per 100,000 to .19 per 100,000. That’s about a 50% decline in the death rate since 2000-2009. As before, cardiac arrests remained far more common among men than among women and more common in marathons than half marathons.

These findings offer additional evidence of how important it is to make CPR training available to race participants and to strategically place defibrillators along the racecourse. It’s also important to better identify the most vulnerable in a population before they run a race.

Ref: Cardiac Arrest During Long-Distance Running Races." JAMA. March 30, 2025. doi:10.1001/jama.2025.3026